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Laughter filled the room as the final match of Gang Beasts ended, a strong sense of joy smothering James and Aleks. Aleks was laughing so hard he couldn’t open his eyes. James looked at him, a wide, open-mouthed smile displayed across his features as he began to calm his own laughter. When Aleks was calm, the two looked at the flooded chat of their stream. Half of them were commenting on the cute laughter and Gang Beasts, half were just talking about random things or arguing with each other.
"So that was that, everyone," James said, getting out his last chuckle. "Do we have time for something else, or no?"
Aleks looked at the time on his computer. “Well it’s 11:30, so we’ve got a little time left, yeah.” he said, scratching his nose.
The chat took another wild turn, then, frantically asking for a strawpoll vote and suggesting games and end-stream doodles all at once. Then the shippers spoke up, requesting fanfiction reading, NovaHD being the most voted on considering the popular ship were the ones streaming together at that very moment. These requests were fueled by James’ fanfiction reading upload a few hours earlier.
Smile lessening and thoughts running wild through his head, James stared blankly at the screen, giving this excessive thought. However, he was impulsive today, which anchored his decision to go through with this, oblivious to the fact that it may upset Aleks. He began to type away, searching for reading material that wasn’t too heavy nor too light. It had been earlier advised to try AO3, Tumblr and sites built specifically for fanfiction, rather than deviantART, and that’s just what he did. Out of partial amazement, his eyes widened at the seemingly endless amount of stories he had just found. Raw, unfiltered stories.
James glanced out of the corner of his eye at Aleks as he clicked on a story to read. Aleks was sipping away at his water, reading the chat and adjusting stream settings again. Having felt James’ gaze, Aleks looked at him, then at his screen. A dark horror washed over him, his complexion pallor. James hadn’t actually taken up the suggestion to read made up stories of false pairings… right? James began to read the first bit of the story, but paused, keeping his eyes on the screen for a moment.
"Aleks, you should read your own lines in this, so it’s more… realistic." he said, finishing his sentence with a hand gesture of grabbing air and looking at Aleks.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Aleks responded, ceasing to blink.
James hadn’t answered that question, just stared at Aleks, a hopeful small grin on his face. His hope was crushed as Aleks had risen from his chair and was heading out the door. James called after him, but Aleks ignored him, slamming the door shut and walking down the hall, questions and accusations racing through his mind.
After a moment of staring at the door that wasn’t opening, James turned back to his computer, sighing, and continued to read the story.
”However, this had been going on for quite a while now and James was getting more and more curious each day. How had this even started, again?"
"Ohh…" James said more to himself than to the 17,000+ people watching him, realizing that this could be a sad or a very sexual story. Aleks re-entered the stream room then, another water bottle in hand. He returned to his seat next to James, deciding to give it a chance. He couldn’t disappear early at the end of his own livestream anyway.
Taking another sip of water, Aleks leaned back in his chair, clearing his throat and mentally preparing himself as he listened to James read the probably-godawful story of the two.
"…His face was swollen from sleep, yet he had a worried expression on his face. “Why?” James questioned, as he scooted over to make room. Aleks shrugged while climbing underneath the covers.”
"Oh my God…" Aleks mumbled, resting his elbow on the table and covering his eyes with his hand. He wished a thousand times in one for James to stop now before something happened that’d be burned into their minds forever and possibly make their friendship awkward, but James had no intention of cutting this short.
”“Aleks, you’re not a kid anymore. Surely nightmares don’t scare you anymore-” “Shut up! You don’t know what it was about…” “I doubt you’d even tell me anyway.” This really captures your personality, Aleks!”
"Shut up!" Aleks snapped, mimicking his own line from the story and proving himself that James was right. The writer really knew how to write in another person’s voice to the point of it being real. Too real.
James was chuckling now, though there was nothing particularly funny about what was being read. He carried on with the story, eventually lowering his voice in a mocking away when he read Aleks’ lines. Aleks was ready to leave the room again, not caring to listen anymore, but restrained. James being right beside him didn’t make things better while he read something about their ship. Talk about awkward. His face was gradually turning red, gripping one arm of his chair and leaning back again.
““Two nights in a row? Why?” Aleks didn’t say anything this time. Just climbed into bed, and curled up again. James didn’t complain, though.' Always doing things without reason.” James tsk’d thrice, shaking his head as he crossed his arms in a proud gesture rather than a defensive one, enjoying this greatly.
"Well hey, at least you don’t complain for once. If only this were true." said Aleks, but immediately realized he’d made a mistake with that last sentence. "No, I mean, like— like if it were true that you didn’t complain." He quickly corrected himself, but the chat was going berserk again, proclaiming the ‘ship to have sailed’. James had laughed again, turning back to his monitor.
Too embarrassed, Aleks spun his chair around away from the screens, away from the camera, and especially away from James. Being seen in his moment of embarrassment was something he hated and it often made things worse than they needed to be. ‘Stop stop stop’, he mumbled in his head, wishing again James would give up. He lifted his hands to his face, feeling the heat rising off of his cheeks - he knew he was blushing and refused to turn around until James stopped reading.
Looking back at Aleks every few seconds, James was smug, wondering if he should read two or three more stories after this with Aleks in the room before the stream ended. His ego was being given far too much attention now, knowing that he could affect his friend in such a way just by reading some words on a screen written by a stranger in another part of the world. He cleared his throat, and continued to read all the way to the end, Aleks still facing away.
—-
The story had explained that Aleks was having nightmares of something unknown and would repeatedly crawl into bed with James with no explanation behind it but lies of being cold every night. James’ smile had faded completely now as he was reading a more emotional part of the story, being more multi-tasked with reading and wondering how his friend was doing. He reached back and grabbed Aleks’ chair, turning it around. Aleks hadn’t expected it and had no time to try and hold his ground before he was back to facing the camera, cheeks still red and eyes suddenly opening, having been closed to listen in peace; something he didn't want anybody knowing, but now it was too late. James let it go and returned to the story again. This time, however, his speech had slowed and he’d quieted down to the point of it being strange. He was usually loud, reckless, swearing-- but not now. Now he was speechless. He’d read ahead and didn’t want to finish the story. He swallowed hard, and continued.
”“I dream that you die.” James froze for a second, shocked that this was what had Aleks fleeing to him every night. But he reached out, placing a hand on the small of Aleks’ back, urging him to continue. “I don’t know how. I just know that you’re dead. So I come in here to you, because…” “You think it’s real.””
He read some more.
"…Aleks?"
James stopped reading, checked the chat briefly, then looked at Aleks, who had his hand up in a fist, covering his mouth, and looking away. His eyes looked red, but it could have very well just been the angle James was seeing him at. He grabbed the arm of his chair and spun him again so he was facing James completely, lowering his head but not bothering to try and stop from being turned closer. He was cursing in his head, abusing himself for being affected from a fucking fake story. 'Lame, Aleksandr. Fucking lame. Gonna get banned for this shit.'
"Aleks, look at me." James said, lowering his own head to try and see Aleks’ face clearly, but the younger kept turning his head further away, biting his tongue to try and stop what he knew was coming inevitably. And to James, all that mattered right now was that something was wrong with his friend. The 17,000 people, the questions and banter in the chat, the stream, the cameras, the story - nothing mattered in this moment but the silent, teary eyed boy who was trying to avoid being looked at.
He risked it all and reached up to move Aleks’ hand away from his mouth, forgetting to let go of it while he did a quick examination, eyes scanning the red-faced Russian. Tears were surely developing and James pulling his hand away severed the last remaining string of strength Aleks had left. A few tears fell and he whimpered, trying to make himself laugh to stop the tears and show that this wasn’t anything to be concerned about. James shouldn't be bothered with him.
"I’m sorry," he barely whispered, the forced laughter failing to help and his face scrunched up. Hearing James read about a dream of him dying, even though it’s never happened, had triggered something in Aleks. A sort of fear he never acknowledged before, a discomfort in his gut. The thought of losing his best friend was heartbreaking, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
"Come here." James said, pulling Aleks into a hug. He held him close, a comforting side being revealed as he rubbed gentle circles into Aleks’ back. People would talk. People would gossip. People would harass them, bully them, make fun of them and accuse them, but if you really thought about it… that wasn’t anything new. Somebody, somewhere, would always find something to bother them about, whether it was true, false, rumour or fact. That wasn’t a concern. Aleks was a concern. His emotions were a concern. His outburst of tears when he never cries was a concern. His silence when he’s usually talking was a concern. And how tightly he was clutching James’ shirt as he was being held was a concern.
"Hey, it’s alright. I’m not going anywhere. Do you hear me, Aleks?" James said in a quiet, gentle voice. His chest had begun to hurt from seeing Aleks like this - this definitely wasn't like him at all.
James felt Aleks nod into his chest and after a moment of silent hugging, they pulled apart, Aleks immediately rubbing his eyes and nose, wiping away his tears and trying to act like nothing happened. James pat his shoulder reassuringly.
"Okay guys. Um… it’s about midnight now. I’m not gonna finish that story. If you want to read the end, I’ll post a link in the comments. I want to thank you all for joining us for another night of streaming, and… we should be back next week, tip top shape." James said, looking into the camera. The chat had gone quiet, mostly.
Aleks cleared his throat, sniffled, and went to say his own lines for the end of the stream, voice weak. He may have felt a rush of emotions that made him look like a wreck, but he couldn't just ignore his responsibilities with the live-stream.
"Be sure to follow us if you want updates as to when we’re streaming. Remember, there are streams every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. And if you wanna subscribe, right on. You’ll get custom emojis and be able to chat when it’s in sub-only mode. Thanks for watching, guys."
Aleks waved at the camera, watching the chat for a moment longer before glancing towards James and getting up to leave the room. As he reached the door, James leaned closer to the camera and moved his microphone, speaking quietly.
"…And I don’t want to hear about anybody picking fun at Aleks for this. There’ll be consequences."
After glaring into the camera with a serious expression of whole-hearted care and concern for his best friend, he leaned back and smiled, thanking everybody again and bidding them a goodnight before going offline.
—-
It may have just been a story, and neither of them may have been or would ever be in any sort of relationship past best friends, but tonight was an eye-opener. Aleks realized he actually cared about somebody, despite his apathetic claims of cynicism and heartlessness. And James knew it, too. It wouldn’t make anything poor between them, but it would certainly open a door to new opportunities. New boundaries, and removal of past ones. No story could make anything true. But they both knew, they’d be the best of friends for life after tonight. This show of care and the story wasn’t awkward. It was what best friends were for.